Nation's 90-plus population tripled in past 30 years, U.S. Census bureau reports

BOSTON - The nation's 90-and-older population tripled over the past three decades and is projected to more than quadruple over the next four decades, the U.S. Census Bureau reported Thursday.

The bureau said the 90-and-older segment of the population hit 1.9 million in 2010 and that people 90 and older comprise 4.7 percent of the nation's residents in the 65 and older bracket, compared to just 2.8 percent in 1980. The share is likely to reach 10 percent by 2050, according to the Census Bureau.

As for characteristics of the 90-and-older population, they are more likely to be women (by a 3 to 1 ratio) and to have higher widowhood, poverty and disability rates than people just under the age cutoff. Also, the majority of people 90 and older reported that they live along or in a nursing home.

At 61.3 percent, bureau officials described an "unexpectedly high" the proportion of the 90-and-older population, individuals who were born in 1918 or earlier, as having completed high school.